JAPAN MUST FIGHT BRITAIN
solidarity and closer world-fellowship will founder and sink in
the Yellow Sea. . . .
Everyone knows that a chivalrous blood flows in Lloyd
George's veins and that his pulses throb to help and befriend
the weak. His championship of the small farmers against
the landlords and of the Armenians against the Turks are
instances of it. It is natural, therefore, that he should take
China's part against Japan. But a more important point
is that he always works in with the people and always
follows the times. He does not cling, like a doctrinaire, to
some abstract principle : as a practical statesman he acts
as the occasion demands. Current public opinion so strongly
influences him that his anti-Japanese article, taken with the
strong language held by Sir John Simon, may be regarded
as characteristic of it, and therefore worthy of serious
consideration in Japan.
How, then, has this growing ill-feeling between England
and Japan arisen ? How will our relations develop ? Is
there no means by which a peaceful solution can be found ?
If not, must Japan and England ultimately come to blows ?
By way of answering these interesting questions I shall first
discuss England's object in making the Alliance.
(2) Retrospect of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
It may be said that the friendliness or estrangement of
international relations, and even the groupings of countries
and the divisions between them, centre more on considera-
tions of gain and loss than on popular feeling. This means
that if the material interests of two peoples are not mutually
opposed, then, when they have to adopt a common line of
action against some third country, their relations grow more
and more intimate and may, ultimately, find expression
in an alliance or treaty. On the other hand, where material
interests clash, it is no rare thing for the friend of yesterday
to change completely into the foe of today. We find a
remarkable instance of this truth in the history of Anglo-
Japanese relations.
Beginning of friendship.
England was the first country to agree to surrender her
extra-territorial rights in Japan. Later, at the time when the